No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RTTT) are federal legislation that attempted to raise the quality of schools in the United States. The definition of success in NCLB and RTTT are closely tied to test scores. NCLB was signed into law in 2002 and in order to gauge the effectiveness of the legislation we will look at a specific school in Rhode Island and try to see if there is measurable improvement since the passing of the legislation. On this page I will look at the demographics of Rogers High School in Newport RI, I will examine test scores from before NCLB, before RTTT, and the most recent data in an attempt to see if there has been any effect.
Rogers High School was founded in 1873 when William Sanford Rogers donated $100,000 to Newport “for the education of youth”. It took the place of Newport High School which had been founded in 1843. It serves as the only high school in the Newport Public School District and moved to its current location in 1957. The school mascot is the Vikings and the symbol is the Rogers family coat of arms, in honor of the founder. There were 587 students at the school for the 2012-2013 school year with 60 teachers. The student body is slightly more diverse than most of Rhode Island with 72.2% self reporting as white compared with 78.3% at the state level. (“About Rogers High School,” n.d.)
At first glance, Rogers High School seems to be a school that is moving in the wrong direction in mathematics and is a shining success in reading. In 2000 over 60%*^ of the students were found to be “meeting standards” in math and fewer than 40% were “meeting standards” in reading. In 2013 the percentage of students “proficient” at math was 25% and 80% were “proficient” in reading. These numbers would be justifiable cause for alarm at the quality of mathematic instruction at Rogers High School if “meeting standards” was equivalent to “proficient”. The problem comes when one realizes that the state of Rhode Island adopted the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) in 2005 and revised the grading scale of the NECAP for 11th graders in 2008. Either of these events makes it difficult to track progress over time and the two of them together complicates things even more. The same issue derails the ability to celebrate the amazing increase in reading ability.#
Based on test scores, it is not possible to definitively say if No Child Left Behind (NCLB) or Race to the Top (RTTT) have been effective. Due to the total shift in testing standards since the passing of NCLB legislation in the early 21st century, it is difficult to say whether the education reforms have been successful or detrimental to Rogers High School. Tracking tested “proficiency” across multiple years is difficult and, due to the constantly changing tests and scoring systems, makes drawing reasonable and useful conclusions almost impossible. Since NCLB started in the early 2000’s the exams used to test proficiency changed to the NECAP, and the definition of proficiency was changed making it difficult to get an independent gauge of NCLB’s impact on Rogers High School. The new scoring scale for the NECAP, which went into effect the year before RTTT began, destroys any frame of reference for RTTT and makes it challenging to compare pre-RTTT Rogers High School with post-RTTT Rogers High School.
There are too many confounding factors to say whether the reform movement has helped with non-academic aspects of student life at Rogers High School. The quality of life indicators at Rogers High School seem like a condemnation of NCLB and RTTT. Since the year 2000 graduation rates have dropped from 87.01% (4% higher than Rhode Island average) to 68.2% (11.5% lower than Rhode Island average).The number of students eligible for free/reduced lunch has risen from 29% to 45%(“Rogers High School,” 2013). This is especially notable because the 17% increase in Rogers High School student eligibility occurred over the same time it took the state of Rhode Island to see an 11% increase in eligibility. Not only was the increase in eligibility larger than the state average, it brought Rogers High School from 6% below the state average to just 1% below the state average for subsidized lunch.
The only way for test scores to meaningfully diagnose the state of education in a school is for the test materials and scoring systems to be consistent and comparable. Since the inception of NCLB, the testing format or the scoring system has changed every 4-5 years, which makes meaningful analysis of the data close to impossible. RTTT started at the same time as the test score overhaul giving no frame of reference for whether it has been successful. The data points from the 5 years it has been active vary by as much as 20% “proficiency” between years with no clear trend to the data. (“Rogers High School,” 2013) Based on the inconsistencies in testing at the state level, the most useful tool for discovering the impact of NCLB and RTTT seems to be the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test. Unfortunately, for the scope of this project, the data is confidential, therefore the scores are not linked to a given school and so NCLB and RTTT's impact on Rogers High School cannot be deciphered from it.
Rogers High School was founded in 1873 when William Sanford Rogers donated $100,000 to Newport “for the education of youth”. It took the place of Newport High School which had been founded in 1843. It serves as the only high school in the Newport Public School District and moved to its current location in 1957. The school mascot is the Vikings and the symbol is the Rogers family coat of arms, in honor of the founder. There were 587 students at the school for the 2012-2013 school year with 60 teachers. The student body is slightly more diverse than most of Rhode Island with 72.2% self reporting as white compared with 78.3% at the state level. (“About Rogers High School,” n.d.)
At first glance, Rogers High School seems to be a school that is moving in the wrong direction in mathematics and is a shining success in reading. In 2000 over 60%*^ of the students were found to be “meeting standards” in math and fewer than 40% were “meeting standards” in reading. In 2013 the percentage of students “proficient” at math was 25% and 80% were “proficient” in reading. These numbers would be justifiable cause for alarm at the quality of mathematic instruction at Rogers High School if “meeting standards” was equivalent to “proficient”. The problem comes when one realizes that the state of Rhode Island adopted the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) in 2005 and revised the grading scale of the NECAP for 11th graders in 2008. Either of these events makes it difficult to track progress over time and the two of them together complicates things even more. The same issue derails the ability to celebrate the amazing increase in reading ability.#
Based on test scores, it is not possible to definitively say if No Child Left Behind (NCLB) or Race to the Top (RTTT) have been effective. Due to the total shift in testing standards since the passing of NCLB legislation in the early 21st century, it is difficult to say whether the education reforms have been successful or detrimental to Rogers High School. Tracking tested “proficiency” across multiple years is difficult and, due to the constantly changing tests and scoring systems, makes drawing reasonable and useful conclusions almost impossible. Since NCLB started in the early 2000’s the exams used to test proficiency changed to the NECAP, and the definition of proficiency was changed making it difficult to get an independent gauge of NCLB’s impact on Rogers High School. The new scoring scale for the NECAP, which went into effect the year before RTTT began, destroys any frame of reference for RTTT and makes it challenging to compare pre-RTTT Rogers High School with post-RTTT Rogers High School.
There are too many confounding factors to say whether the reform movement has helped with non-academic aspects of student life at Rogers High School. The quality of life indicators at Rogers High School seem like a condemnation of NCLB and RTTT. Since the year 2000 graduation rates have dropped from 87.01% (4% higher than Rhode Island average) to 68.2% (11.5% lower than Rhode Island average).The number of students eligible for free/reduced lunch has risen from 29% to 45%(“Rogers High School,” 2013). This is especially notable because the 17% increase in Rogers High School student eligibility occurred over the same time it took the state of Rhode Island to see an 11% increase in eligibility. Not only was the increase in eligibility larger than the state average, it brought Rogers High School from 6% below the state average to just 1% below the state average for subsidized lunch.
The only way for test scores to meaningfully diagnose the state of education in a school is for the test materials and scoring systems to be consistent and comparable. Since the inception of NCLB, the testing format or the scoring system has changed every 4-5 years, which makes meaningful analysis of the data close to impossible. RTTT started at the same time as the test score overhaul giving no frame of reference for whether it has been successful. The data points from the 5 years it has been active vary by as much as 20% “proficiency” between years with no clear trend to the data. (“Rogers High School,” 2013) Based on the inconsistencies in testing at the state level, the most useful tool for discovering the impact of NCLB and RTTT seems to be the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test. Unfortunately, for the scope of this project, the data is confidential, therefore the scores are not linked to a given school and so NCLB and RTTT's impact on Rogers High School cannot be deciphered from it.
About Rogers High School. (n.d.). Rogers High School. Retrieved from http://www.npsri.net/domain/88
Rogers High School. (2013). InfoWorks. Retrieved from http://infoworks.ride.ri.gov/school/rogers-high-school
Rogers High School Assesment and Demographics. (2000). Information Works! Retrieved from http://infoworks.ride.uri.edu/2000/queries/findschc.idc?ID=21111
Rogers High School Learning and Achievement: Assessments. (2009). Information Works! Retrieved from http://infoworks.ride.uri.edu/2009/pdf/achievement/21111H-achi.pdf
Rhode Island Education Survey Suite. (2013, 2014). Rogers High School Survey Works. Retrieved from http://infoworks.ride.ri.gov/files/surveyworks/2013-2014/combined/surveyworks-2013-2014-rogers-high-school-student-parent-teacher-hs.pdf
*^Pre-2005 data from tests given to 10th graders. After 2005 NECAP scores are from 11th graders (for future bibliography)